Kick-Starting Football Dreams From India to Colorado

The Coca-Cola
Trophy (previously Coca-Cola Mir Iqbal Hussain Trophy) is an annual grassroots
level football tournament (soccer in the United States). It is played across 75 cities reaching out to over
40,000 young footballers from 2,500 schools.

Uttam Rai is one
of the prodigies that have emerged from the Coca-Cola Trophy, where he was the
vice-captain for Delhi and has since gone on to represent India in the U-14 and
U-16 national teams. Uttam was part of the India U-16 National team that
trained at the IMG Academy in Florida as part of a sponsorship by IMG-Reliance.
Coca-Cola India is now facilitating his training stint at the Colorado Rush Academy
in Denver, USA.

Interest from
Colorado Rush in Uttam increased after the India U-16 team’s participation in
the Dallas Cup 2012 where Uttam was mentioned as one of Top 10 Players To Watch Out For, and also in having their
scouts watch Uttam at the IMG Academy in Florida. Libero Sports, who
exclusively represent Uttam, were instrumental in bringing all parties together
for the extended invitation.